S. 613 — Improving Flood and Agricultural Forecasts Act of 2025

This section establishes the National Mesonet Program, to be maintained by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (i.e., NOAA administrator). The Program must (1) obtain observations to improve understanding and forecasts of atmospheric, drought, fire, and water events, prioritizing non-Federal commercial, academic, and other data to enhance weather enterprise coordination; (2) annually integrate greater density and types of observations, including from local and regional networks such as soil moisture sensors and ground-based profilers; (3) establish memoranda of understanding with external networks; and (4) coordinate with satellite data and services under the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017. In implementing the Program, the Under Secretary must (1) increase data density to support National Weather Service baseline forecasts, nowcasts, warnings, hyper-local predictions, subseasonal-to-seasonal numerical weather prediction, air-sea interactions, and 30-minute severe weather warnings; (2) monitor local conditions by acquiring soil moisture data for drought forecasting and the National Integrated Drought Information System, supporting the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network, and expanding roadway environmental observations; and (3) administer the Program by acquiring only cost-effective, high-quality data; leveraging existing networks including supplemental radars; providing infrastructure for new non-Federal data integration; coordinating with NOAA data sources (e.g., National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service); and identifying research priorities. The section authorizes the Under Secretary to award at least 15% of annual Program appropriations as financial and technical assistance to State, Tribal, private, and academic entities to build, expand, or upgrade mesonet systems, including maintenance in remote or underrepresented areas, subject to data-sharing agreements verified for operational value and cost. Such assistance may supplement other federal awards.